Matt Dominguez remains the Marlins third baseman of the future, just not the immediate future.

Thursday, the Marlins reassigned Dominguez to minor league camp. Joining him on the minor league side: infielders Ruben Gotay and Joe Thurston, right-hander Frank Mata and outfielder Josh Kroeger.

The Marlins were hoping Dominguez, 21, would win the Opening Day job. He didn’t show enough at the plate to justify carrying him in spite of his stellar glove. In 42 at-bats, Dominguez batted .190 with a .292 on-base percentage, five walks and 10 strikeouts. He’ll start the season at Triple-A New Orleans, but bank on him making his major league debut at some point in 2011.

“It happened to Gaby Sanchez two years ago,” manager Edwin Rodriguez said. “It happened to Logan Morrison last year. We all know he has the ability to play in the big leagues at some point, but it’s not going to happen right now. We thought he was pressing a little bit. He was taking his offense to the field, and that’s not him. Eventually, we all know he’s going to be in the major leagues for many, many years.”

Rodriguez did not rule out a quick return for Dominguez. If he’s having his way with Pacific Coast League pitching, he could be the Marlins’ starting third baseman before the All-Star break.

“Hopefully that will be the case,” Rodriguez said. “We just want him to relax. We all knew we were asking a lot from the kid. That could be one of the situtations. If he shows he’s ready to come up, he will come up.”

In the meantime, the Marlins have to find a stop gap at third. The top internal options are Emilio Bonifacio and Donnie Murphy, both of whom Rodriguez said would split time there. Rodriguez added that Omar Infante, who has plated third in the past, would remain at second.

The Opening Day third baseman may not even be in camp right now. One name to monitor is Pedro Feliz. The former Phillie is in camp with the Kansas City Royals on a minor league deal, but he has little chance to break camp with them and can request his release by March 28 if he’s not added to the roster. Feliz isn’t going to light it up offensively. He’s just 2-for-19 this spring and in 2010 with the Astros and Cardinals batted .218 with a .533 OPS.

What could make Feliz, who turns 36 next month, intriguing to the Marlins is affordability and defense. He would also enable the Marlins to keep Infante at his preferred position (second) and guys like Bonifacio and Murphy in bench roles where they have their greatest value.

The Marlins’ center field situation could impact third base as well. Bonifacio is a candidate to play in center if Chris Coghlan (shoulder) isn’t ready. Rodriguez continues to think Coghlan will be his Opening Day guy, but he’s still feeling discomfort stemming from rotator cuff tendinitis. Coghlan will play in a minor league game today.

“We all want to make sure he’s going to be fine,” Coghlan said. “There’s nothing major with his shoulder. That’s why we’re holding back one more day and see how he’s going to be feeling [Friday]. He’s never had this pain before, so he’s wondering and all concerned. From my standpoint, I don’t want to put him in our lineup and him worrying about his shoulder.”

When Juan Rodriguez wrote “What could make Feliz, who turns 36 next month, intriguing to the Marlins is affordability and defense”, he should have stopped after the word “affordability”.

The Marlins took a huge and, in my opinion, unfounded gamble that Dominguez could be a major league third baseman this season. All they had to do was to realistically examine what Dominguez has done so far in the his minor league career and pay more attention to the baseball scouts, theirs and other teams, to know that Dominguez had to go to AAA this year.

The better plan was the one that they had in the fall and that was to move Coghlan to 3B and find a true center fielder. However, Coghlan now can not throw the ball and if the Marlins are not careful, he could end up on the operating table.

But just as the Marlins picked up Paulino at the end of spring training, there well could be better candidates for 3B than Feliz,appearing as teams make their final cut downs.

How can you overcome a team that has Lee, Halladay, Oswalt and Hamels as starters? You can’t. When the only other team that has any chance to win the division is the Braves. The Phillies are too strong. Expect the Phillies to battle the Giants for a ticket to the Series.

Braves are getting good again. My pick as the Wild Card winners. Fredi left Florida in time for this gig. Heyward & Freeman should be a good combo for years to come. I look for a dog fight until mid September with the Phillies.

Marlins have promise. Or they have a disaster ready to happen. Just your average Double AA ball club charging their fans major league prices. I expect some good Mermaid photos from Ted Hutton, and good on filed home game camera work from Fox Florida Sports network of when the girls bend over to keep us male fans around for the season. It will be a long season for Juan up in the media booth. Even longer when the Heat are eliminated from the playoffs. Dolphin’s talk begins in June. Will not win more than 77 games this season.

Mets – they will lose more than just $100 million. A team on a major down swing in all phases. Who wants to hear about the Mets anyway? They are bad. Enough said. Jets talk begins in May for Mets fans.

Nationals – Strasberg is out for the season. Werth is over paid. Just another losing season from these guys. At least the Marlins have someone to beat up on at least 16 times a season. Obama will show up when the Cubs come to town.